


only if for a night

by venndaai



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 15:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11016591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Ancillaries don't dream. Usually.





	only if for a night

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr.

_Sphene_ opened its eyes in the darkness, and took too long to remember, _this is a small room on_ Mercy of Kalr _where they put me_.

Suddenly there was light, as the door slid open, and Sphene squinted at an enormous dark silhouette defined only by the edges of that light. Then Zeiat stepped through the doorway.

“Translator,” _Sphene_ said, after a too-long moment of paralysis.

“I am sorry I opened the door without your permission,” Zeiat said, voice careful. _Sphene_ still couldn’t see anything of her but a shadow, even as she sat down on the edge of the cot. “I know doors are important.”

_Sphene_ could have said, _For humans, yes; but I am just an ancillary._ It did not.

“ _Mercy of Kalr_ let me in,” Zeiat said. “Because you appeared to be in some distress, apparently.”

_Sphene_ was still lying down. It managed to push itself half upright, and sat there leaning against the wall, heart pounding.

“Translator,” it asked, “do you ever dream?”

 

* * *

 

“No, Captain, I do not,” _Sphene_ said. “Dreams are the human mind’s way of processing information, and I have the capacity to process information in a much more effective way.”

“Oh,” Minask said. She sighed, and took another sip of her tea. _Sphene_ brushed her hair out of her face, and also refilled the tea flask, and also adjusted the lights in the cabin to a level that it knew its captain would find most soothing.

“I remember the dreams my segments experienced, before they became part of me,” said the _Sphene_ that was on the bed. Minask’s green hair looked amber in the low orange light. Bits of it stood up wildly. _Sphene_ stroked it, the pads of its gloved fingers pressing through to Minask’s scalp.

“Are you glad you don’t dream?”

_Sphene_ ’s second segment put down the flask, and sat on the floor by the bed, looking up. “Should I be?”

“Did I just walk right into a philosophical challenge?” Minask said. “I know Verkur wrote about dreams being the mind’s attempt to peer through a gauzy curtain at the divine, but I don’t think I’m up to quoting the Meditations from memory when I just woke up from a nightmare at God knows what point in my sleep cycle.”

“Agreed,” _Sphene_ said, from her left side, on the bed, its hand moving from her hair to her shoulder. “Still, your heart rate is fifty percent slower now than it was thirty seconds ago. Philosophical debates have their uses.”

Minask’s surprised laughter was loud and deep. She grinned. “How sneaky of you, Ship.”

“It’s only sneaky if I don’t tell you afterwards,” _Sphene_ said. “That’s the rule, remember?” It paused, and when it spoke next it was in the exact same flat tone it had used before, with no apparent change in emotion. “This is the third time this week.”

Minask threw herself back on the bed, flinging an arm across her eyes. “I know, I know.”

A third of _Sphene_ ’s officers were awake right now, and Lieutenant Amaud was in command on Flower Deck, above the captain’s quarters. The ship’s segments went about their duties. No sound penetrated this dark space, where _Sphene_ ’s attention was currently disproportionately focused. That was all right. There was nothing that needed its attention more, right now.

“If you want my honest opinion,” Minask mumbled, “Verkur was full of shit, and you’re lucky you don’t have to deal with this particular human weakness.”

The _Sphene_ on the floor stood up, and sat on the bed, pushing its captain a little so she was sandwiched between the two ancillaries. _Sphene_ looked at Minask, and waited. Looking at its captain was no hardship.

“I don’t want to go home,” Minask said, face still hidden by her broad arm. “I don’t want to leave you. I’ve gotten too used to having you always just a word away. I'm spoiled.”

Even the technological connections between officer and ship were severed when the human officer entered the pure sphere of the Radch. _Sphene_ had never seen inside, though Minask had told it such vivid stories of the jeweled and gilded corridors and the brilliantly colorful trees that _Sphene_ might have seen it in its dreams, if it had dreams.

“It won’t be for long,” _Sphene_ said, through the segment at the foot of the bed. Then, flatly, “Won’t it.”

“I hope so,” Minask said, and sighed. “Change is part of movement,” she said. “Part of Amaat. I shouldn’t fear it so much. But it is frightening, to think about things changing, when you’re happy with how they currently are.”

She sat up, suddenly, and pulled the nearer segment into an embrace, careless of her bare hands. She buried her face against its shoulder. _Sphene_ hugged her back, with two bodies, and four arms.

Minask lifted her head enough to say, “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

“Yes,” _Sphene_ said, through her cochlear implant this time.

“You're very gracious, to put up with all my nonsense. Are you sick of me yet?”

 

* * *

 

“No, not yet.”

“Oh, good.” _Mercy of Kalr_ closed the door and turned the lights up a little, and _Sphene_ could see Zeiat’s face now, could see her earnest frown. “You know, I honestly can’t tell you if we Translators dream or not, because that would require understanding what dreaming means, and none of us have ever been able to get a sensible explanation of it.”

“Fair,” _Sphene_ said. It found it could move a little now. It drew its knees up to its chest. This gave Zeiat more room to scoot herself further onto the mattress.

“Were you dreaming, just now?”

_Sphene_ ’s throat was dry. It swallowed. “Yes,” it said, because why not be honest. “Ancillaries usually don’t, though.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Not unless they are cut off from the rest of the ship. Which I happen to be, ever since we went into gate space. It is. Unpleasant.”

“Have you done it before?”

“No.”

_Sphene_ looked closer. Zeiat didn’t seem at all tired, despite having been awake for- well, how long had she been awake?

“Do Translators sleep?” it asked.

To its pure surprise, Zeiat’s animated face went blank as an ancillary’s. “No,” she said, her tone still cheerful, but for the first time _Sphene_ wondered if that endless cheerfulness, and its alternating childish boredom, were more akin to an AI’s tonelessness than a human’s fluctuating range of emotional expression.

“Translators don’t own things, do they,” _Sphene_ said. “So you can’t understand the fear that comes from having something, and then not having it any more. The horrible knowledge that any possession is temporary, and there is nothing you can hold on to without someday losing it.”

“No,” Zeiat said, and the blankness cracked into a wide smile. “We fear other things.”

“I’m sure you do,” _Sphene_ said.

It wanted Zeiat to leave. Wanted _Mercy of Kalr_ to turn off the lights. Wanted to roll back over and close its eyes and return to the strange and terrible land of dreams. Wanted to hold onto the feeling that was slowly seeping away, the longer it talked to Zeiat here in the light.

“Since we’re both awake,” _Sphene_ said, “shall we continue the game?”


End file.
